Washington Park Bike Ride

I had a fun bike ride in Washington Park this morning. They are fixing up the roads in preparation for the 40th anniversary celebrations later this month, so one can really zoom along on a mtn. bike. The chart show the elevation in meters and the distance in kilometers.

You can see the route overlayed on a Google Earth image of Bonaire by clicking on this link to Mapmyrun dot com. You have to select the satellite image option, at the top middle of the image, to see the satellite image (duh!) and you can switch between miles and kilometers in the box at the top right of the image. You can also display elevation information, but the chart in this blog is more detailed, especially if you click on it to make it big.

I took the long route in and the short route out. The trip came to 18.2 miles or 29.46 km. My total time was 1:29:30, which equals my personal best. I had to stop for two minutes at Playa Funchi to pump up my front tire and I stopped about 20 seconds on the way up Yuwa Pass to put my chain back on the front chain ring (grrrr) so my actual riding time constitutes a new personal record sort of.

My max. speed was 28 mph and the min. speed was really really slow, making an average speed of 12.4 mph. If I were in a race situation, I could probably go faster, but not very much. I'm going to try to talk Miguel and/or the guys who rode in the elite class at the recent race to ride this loop some morning, while the roads are in good shape, so I can find out just how quickly one can actually do it.

I'm sure it will be significantly shorter than 1:29:30. (I'd guess 1:10 - 1:12 but we'll have to try it to see) My ultimate goal would be to follow them in a pickup and video them. Cousin Bud Gillan and I made a video of the park loop roads last year, but I think one with bikes in it would be cool.